


Concrete Hands

by cobaltsiren



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-05
Updated: 2013-01-05
Packaged: 2017-11-23 17:52:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/624956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobaltsiren/pseuds/cobaltsiren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A present for the 2012 FuckYeahQuinnSantana Gift Exchange.</p><p>Prompt: AU Buddy cops with a focus on how they interact to handle the job. This honestly could be a friendship fic/doesn’t actually have to have anything sexual about it. I just want to see the girls being partners who kick ass.</p><p>Quinn is now Dr. Fabray, PhD in Criminal Pathology. Santana is Detective Lopez.  Roommates and partners, they solve crimes as only they can, with a good amount of snark and UST.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Concrete Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [raccoontitties](https://archiveofourown.org/users/raccoontitties/gifts).



_a strip of wet concrete_  
 _her name was just a broken sound_  
 _a stutter step you hear when you're falling down_

 

Santana stepped carefully over the bright yellow tape. "POLICE LINE - DO NOT CROSS" had lost all meaning for her except another day at the office.  Inside the apartment, the new crop of trainees were dusting for prints and searching for suspicious fibers in the bland cream carpet.  It was too bad they were completely incompetent.  One of them walked by with a mug in a plastic baggie. Santana grabbed his elbow with a look of disgust.

"Why the hell do you not have gloves on? Is that not the first fucking thing they teach you jackasses in academy?"

"Well I....forgot but...I didn't touch anything with my hands!"

"Oooh, you had one rational thought this morning! Congratulations. Now get out of my crime scene and don't come back until you have my coffee, one sugar one cream. And another one black."

He scurried out of her way with his head down, and she yelled as an afterthought, "And bring them in with gloves on!"

Santana sighed and headed towards the bedroom, fingers crossed that the new morons hadn't trampled it yet.  As she glanced around the room she opened up recent contacts on her phone and dialed her partner.

"Dr. Fabray."

"It's me Q," Santana said, with an eye roll despite the fact that Quinn couldn't see it.

"I know.  But I spent 6 years on the degree and I'm damn well using the title at every opportunity.  Now is this important? I'm in the middle of a game of chess."

"Against the computer?"

"Yes, but I don't see why that matters."

"Because your computer isn't going anywhere, and we have a case."

"How were they killed?"

"They weren't. Breaking and entering, possibly robbery, no bodies found yet."

"Boring," Quinn yawned for emphasis. "Call me back when someone's dead."

"Just come down here Q.  I have coffee on its way and you can yell at the new forensic techs with me."

"Fine, but this better not be so obvious that your new kids could have solved it for you."

"Are you kidding? They can't even put gloves on straight."

The line went dead, so Santana shoved the phone back in her pocket and went back over the bedroom.  The drawers had been rifled through, clothes and cheap jewelry scattered on the floor.  It was hard to say if anything of value had been taken, they would have to check with the apartment's occupant.  Her coffees arrived, with zero eye contact from the tech, finally sporting a pair of nitrile gloves.  Quinn wasn't far behind, and Santana wordlessly passed her coffee as she surveyed the scene. 

"So what do we know?" Quinn asked, her eyes constantly on the move.

"We got the call from the lady upstairs, she heard someone banging around and she knows the occupant leaves early because she has a long commute."

"Did she see anyone?"

"She didn't leave her apartment, she just called the cops."

"No heroes these days, huh?"

"She's 85, Q.  What's she supposed to do against a potentially armed robber? Give him a cookie and keep him occupied with stories about her childhood 'til we show up?"

"My grandmother carried a revolver in her handbag until the day she died."

"Well we can't all be wild west grannies.  I plan on being completely uninteresting after the age of 70.  Maybe I'll take up knitting."

Quinn only had to raise one eyebrow at Santana, and they both burst out laughing.

 After the fit of giggles passed, Quinn took a serious look around the room.  Santana waited, following her line of sight and drinking coffee.  After a silent few minutes, Quinn walked back over to elbow her in the ribs.

"Ow, hey!"

"Why didn't you just tell me this was a kidnapping to begin with?"

"What?"

"Oh my god, you didn't notice? Seriously, what would you do without me?  Scuff marks on the right side of the bed frame, the carpet looks roughed up, you know, things traditionally referred to as 'signs of a struggle,'" Quinn said, complete with air quotes.

Santana walked around to check the side of the bed, cursing.

"Goddamn it, there's blood on the nightstand too. Fucking cherry varnish, it blends in. Deitzler!" She yelled to the lieutenant in the hallway, "Get someone in here who can take a decent blood sample.  We have ourselves a whole new case."

"I'm going to let you chalk this one up to not having your coffee this morning because it would be sad if you were slipping this badly," Quinn said with an obnoxious smirk on her face.

"No wonder we couldn't get a hold of the occupant.  We assumed she was at work. Shit, shit, shit.  Well, now we really could use any kind of witness."

"No one in the building saw anything?"

"Nope," Santana shook her head and drained the rest of her coffee.

"Guess we'd better get some background on the victim, find out who has motive."

"Ten bucks on the ex-boyfriend?"

"No way, after this catch you should just pay me something, not try to scam me on a wager with such stacked odds."

"I'll buy you dinner if it'll shut you up, Sherlock.  I'll go start interviewing the rest of the building, see if they knew of any personal conflicts she's had recently," Santana said, turning to leave the room.

"And I'll check her Facebook.  Care to wager on which is more helpful?"

Santana could feel Quinn grinning at her, but refused to give her the satisfaction of showing obvious frustration.  She pinched the bridge of her nose.  One coffee was obviously not going to be enough this morning. 

"I'll see you at home, Q."

 

xx----xx

 

Santana closed the apartment door behind her with a foot, dropped the takeout on the counter by the stove, and threw her jacket over the back of a chair.  Quinn wasn't in the living room, so she called out, "I'm home!  There's Chinese in the kitchen!"

"'Kay," was Quinn's muffled response from her bedroom.

"Seriously Q, computers don't care if you leave the game to get some dinner."

"I know," Quinn said, rolling her eyes as she emerged from her room, bringing her laptop with her.  "What did you get out of the neighbors?"

"Besides directions to the nearest Pei Wei?  Clair Kingsley, 36, legal assistant.  The nosy lady next door said Miss Kingsley had a very loud breakup a few months back, and a string of one night stands ever since."

"Yeah, she's definitely listed as single on Facebook, but her ex is still on her friends list."

"Huh.  Unusual for a messy breakup.  Makes it easier for him to keep stalking her though."

Quinn set her computer on the coffee table and rifled through the bag for her fried rice and Mongolian chicken.  "I guess we'd better track Mr. Bryan Reichard, 38, part-time DJ, down and see if he has an alibi."

"Part-time DJ? No wonder she dumped his ass. But that's tomorrow," Santana said, reaching for the remote, "right now it's time for CSI."

"How can you watch that?  Isn't dealing with it every day enough?"

"At least it's not old black-and-white Sherlock Holmes like _someone_ makes me watch."

"I don't understand how you can't appreciate Basil Rathbone, but maybe The Great Mouse Detective would be more to your liking."

"Fine, whatever, as long as it's in color, and not that BBC one with Cummerbund or whoever. Or, you know, we could watch something other than mysteries."

Quinn glared at her, but Santana gave as good as she got. They broke the silence in unison.

"No reality TV!" "No musicals!!"

Santana deflated with a laugh and a sigh, and turned to point the remote at the TV, "Modern Family?"

"'Kay," Quinn shrugged and grabbed a fortune cookie.

 

xx----xx

 

Santana knocked on the door of the innocuous suburban home, clearing her throat as a smiling woman in her mid-60s opened the door.

"Mrs. Reichard?" she asked.

"Yes, can I help you ladies?"

"I'm Detective Lopez, and this is Doctor Fabray," Santana said, flashing her badge. "We were wondering if you could answer a few questions about your son Bryan."

"Oh god, what happened? Doctor?" Mrs. Reichard turned to Quinn, "Is he sick, hurt?" She looked between them, horrified, but stood aside to let them in.

"Not at all ma'am," Quinn rushed to say, sitting down while taking her hand and pulling her into a seat across from them. "I'm a PhD, not a medical doctor.  We were trying to get in touch with Bryan, actually, but we couldn't reach him.  We had a few questions about his relationship with Miss Kingsley and we hoped you could tell us his whereabouts."

"Oh," Mrs. Reichard said, taking a deep breath.  "He's on vacation, on a cruise.  I was afraid there had been some sort of accident."

"A cruise?" Santana asked.  "When did he leave?"

"Four days ago," his mother replied, "he should be back sometime next week if you need to talk to him.  He was pretty shaken up by his split from Clair. I think this trip is supposed to be some sort of singles mixer, not that he would talk to me about the details of that."

"If he wasn't in the country early yesterday morning, than we won't need to talk to him," Santana said, standing to go.

"Has something happened to her?"

"Yes, she's gone missing, but I'm afraid we can't talk about the details," Quinn replied.

"Oh no, I hope you girls can find her."

"We'll do our best ma'am." Santana shook her hand and she let them out.

 

xx----xx

 

"Well that was a dead end," Santana said, sighing as she heaved herself into their squad car.

"Don't you just hate airtight alibis?"

"Does it check out?"

"Yeah," Quinn said after checked her phone, "He boarded a flight to Miami on Tuesday, and he just posted some lovely photos of a Caribbean sunrise on Instagram. God, vintage filters need to die."

"Let the hipsters have their fun, we need to find a new lead."

"She's not really rich enough to ransom, neither are her parents.  Dad's dead, mom's a librarian.  It could be another ex, but there doesn't seem to be any triggering event for one of them to come after her now."

"How about we check her office?"

"I think that's our best bet, unless anyone in her apartment building seemed suspicious to you."

"Nah, I think the office is likely to be a better source of creepy dudes.  She's a legal assistant remember?  It'll be full of lawyers."

"It is always a guy, isn't it?" Quinn shook her head.  "You have the address?"

 "Yeah, navigate us."

"On it."

 

xx----xx

 

The receptionist at Schuler, Truman, Hawthorne, and Fisk, Attorneys at Law, showed them to a conference room.  Pam Truman joined them shortly, introducing herself and shaking hands with a concerned look.

"Hi officers, they said you were here about Clair?"

"Yes, Ms. Truman, she's been abducted,"  Quinn said, placing a hand over hers as Pam gasped. 

"We were worried when she didn't show up yesterday and we couldn't reach her, but I would never have thought..."

"Did she have any interpersonal issues here? Any enemies?" Santana asked, pulling out a pen and notepad.

"No, everyone loved her.  She was sweet, polite, didn't really argue or even stand out that much."

"Anyone love her too much? Flirtations, anyone seem to be... overly friendly?"

"Nothing stands out in my mind..."

"Has anyone else been absent or acting suspiciously over the last couple of days?" Quinn asked when she trailed off.

"The only other person not in today is Rob, one of our associates.  He came in yesterday morning, but he was looking really ill, so we sent him home."

"And he didn't come back today?"

"No, but he called.  Still has the stomach flu I guess."

"Can we get his full name and number please?"

"Of course. But, you don't think?...."

"We follow up on every possibility ma'am," Santana said firmly.

 

xx----xx

 

"How come you always turn on sympathetic-good-Christian-girl in these interviews?" Santana asked as they got back in the car, "You're always reassuring them and touching their hands and shit."

"Because I like playing Good Cop.  And you make a much more believable Bad Cop than I do."

"Oh I don't know about that, I think you do bitch pretty well."

"Aw, that's sweet of you.  Maybe next time you can play nice."

"We'll see," Santana said, getting out her phone and dialing the number Ms. Truman had given them for Robert Simon. It rang five times and went to voicemail.  She hung up and turned the car on. "No answer.  I already don't like him, never trust anyone with two first names."

"That's stupid.  How about we don't trust him if he's faking sick and hiding a dead body?"

"I guess we should pay him a visit, maybe bring a get well card."

"Yeah, right."

 

xx----xx

 

Santana knocked firmly on the front door.  Quinn stood a step below her, checking a phone message while Santana tapped her foot on a dirty welcome mat.

"That was an email from the lab," Quinn stepped up next to her. "The blood on the nightstand was Clair's."

"Shit.  That's no help."

"No, it just means we need to find her, fast.  It's been almost forty-eight hours and we have no idea how badly she's hurt."

"I know," Santana said, foot still tapping reflexively.

Quinn walked down the steps and around to the driveway, "There's no car in the garage, he's probably not home."

"Maybe he's out buying Pepto-Bismol and lime Jell-O," Santana said, looking down at her foot and forcing herself to stop tapping. The welcome mat she was standing on looked like it had been soaking up motor oil in a garage for years. Disgusted, she kicked at it, then exclaimed "Fuck. Shit, shit, shit, Quinn!"

"What?" Quinn walked back towards her.

"There's a bloodstain under this mat. It looks like he tried to wash it but couldn't get it out of the wood."

"That's because they did a terrible job waterproofing it..."

"Quinn! Focus! Physical evidence. We have to go in there and look for her."

"I know! Let me call in for a warrant," Quinn dug for her phone in her purse, but Santana was already wrapping her jacket around her fist and punching in one of the squares of glass around the doorframe.  "Santana!"

"What? You said yourself we have to find her ASAP."

"Yeah, but what about due process, a call for backup, something?"

Santana just reached through the hole and fiddled with the deadbolt, then pulled out her gun as she eased the door open.  Weapon in front of her, she inched her way inside. Quinn followed her with a huff, glancing behind them as Santana checked the living room, then the kitchen.  Both clear, Santana pointed with her chin up the stairs and Quinn nodded.  Every creak of the steps seemed to echo in the empty house. Santana checked the bathroom and bedroom, moving on as soon as there don't appear to be any immediate threats or signs of Clair.  Quinn lingered a bit behind her, looking for evidence of a body dragged through, blood, struggle, something.  The upstairs was as empty as the main floor.  Silently, Quinn followed Santana back down the steps and through the kitchen to the back of the house where stairs descend to the basement. 

Their breathing sounded like a hurricane to Quinn's keyed up senses.  The stairs creaked worse than the flight to the second floor and there was no carpet to cushion the hammer fall of their boots on the wood. At the base of the steps, Santana felt around the wall for a light switch, but there was none.  Once their eyes adjusted, Quinn noticed a bare blub and chain hanging from the ceiling beams in the middle of the unfinished room.  She pointed, and Santana reached up to pull it, eyes shielded from the upcoming light.  They looked around quickly, but the room was stacked with dusty furniture and little else.

"But it's too small..." Quinn whispered.

"What?" Santana said hoarsely.

"This room is only about two-thirds the size of the upstairs," she pointed left, "that wall, it should go farther that way, there must be a door in that wood paneling."

They walked around the furniture towards the wall.  There was a latch visible near the corner, and Santana tugged at it to find it unlocked.

"That wasn't even very well hidden," she muttered.

"I don't think he spent a lot of time thinking this through, although I could be wrong. We might be walking into a stack of skeletons."

"Shh," Santana hissed as she went in, cocking her gun again.

"Oh my god!" Quinn yelled, as light fell on the prone body of a woman in the corner of the room.

She rushed past Santana, kneeling down to check her wrist for a pulse.  With a huge sigh she felt a slow but steady rhythm, and noticed the rise and fall of her chest.

"She's just unconscious.  And it looks like the blood was from a gash on her upper arm."

"Thank god," Santana said, "But we need to get out of here, now."

Quinn nodded, but as they tried to lift Clair's dead weight between them, there was a creak of hinges and footsteps upstairs.  Santana gestured sharply and they set her down; then Santana threw an arm in front of Quinn to press them flush against the wall behind the door.

They waited, holding their breath as the footsteps drew closer.  Rob was pausing at each doorway, checking the rooms just as they had minutes before. Santana held her gun level at the doorway, her body angled in front of Quinn as he stepped around the old chairs and sofas in the next room.  He stopped short of the doorway, in an endless moment of bated breath. Suddenly, a pistol whipped around the door frame, followed by a heavy-set, six foot tall man aiming it straight at them.  Santana's gun held steady, pointing at his chest.

"Drop it," she said in firm monotone.

"You first," he sneered.

In seconds his gun was on the floor, and he followed it down, clutching the bullet wound in his shoulder.

"What is this, third grade? You first, bitch."

 

xx----xx

 

Backup and two ambulances were a quick phone call away.  Quinn sat on the steps as the chief yelled at Santana's recklessness, again.

"Hey, there's a living woman the back of that ambulance," Santana shot back, eyes hard, "isn't that the only thing that matters?"

It stopped the tirade, for the moment, and Santana walked over to flop down beside Quinn.  Her head fell into her hands as the adrenaline drained out of her.  Quinn put a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey," she said gently.

When Santana turned to look at her, she leaned forward and pressed their lips together briefly.

"What was that for?" Santana's hand drifted up to her mouth.

"Well, you saved her life. And mine too, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but I also dragged you in there in the first place."

"Stop reminding me how stupid that was and take me out to dinner."

A long breath later, Santana smiled. "Sure, it's a date."


End file.
